Can Elliott Abrams be stopped?

His guilty pleas from Iran-Contra are almost a trophy for the slippery neocon behind the Chuck Hagel fight

BY JORDAN MICHAEL SMITH

Though secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearings were bruising, thanks to aggressive questioning from Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, it could have been worse. His staunchest critic was absent.

More than anyone else, it is Elliott Abrams who has questioned the former Nebraska senator’s qualifications and character. Abrams twice called Hagel an outright anti-Semite, a smear other neoconservatives hinted at but couldn’t bring themselves to utter. So outrageous was Abrams’ slur that the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, where Abrams is a senior fellow, publicly criticized it.

Neoconservatives deploy baseless accusations of anti-Semitism as frequently as they indulge in nepotism, of course. But that Abrams has, once more, pushed himself to the center of a foreign policy debate is remarkable: The man is, after all, a convicted criminal. And yet, not only was Abrams exempt from serving prison time for his misconduct — he was later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, in the days after his loss to Bill Clinton — but he has since been fully accepted back into the highest echelons of the Republican foreign-policy community. Abrams’ bizarre reincarnation as a pseudo-statesman shows that even committing crimes counts as insufficient to merit excommunication from government service.

Abrams seems cooked from a neoconservative recipe. Born to a Jewish New York home, he was once a reliable Democrat. He opposed the Vietnam War and criticized police handling of student protesters in the 1960s. But he rejected the counterculture and began writing for Commentary and the Public Interest, magazines themselves alienated from the New Left and on a trajectory from left to right. He joined the staff of hawkish Washington Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a key influence on so many neocons, from Abrams to Paul Wolfowitz to Richard Perle, and later went to work in New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s office.

1. Elliot Abrams was indicted and pardoned for lying to congress:

From the posted article:

~snip~

During a congressional hearing, Democratic Sen. Terry Eagleton said Abrams’ lies made him “want to puke.” Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger quipped, “I wouldn’t trust Elliott any further than I could throw Ollie North.” Abrams pleaded guilty to two charges of withholding information from Congress, in order to avoid a trial. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and community service.

That should have been that. But in 1992, outgoing President George H.W. Bush pardoned Abrams, along with other Iran-Contra veterans. Later, Bush Junior appointed Abrams to a National Security Council post in 2001

~snip~

Why is this person allowed to continue to influence American politics after all this? Disgusting!

2. If we waterboard him, will he tell us where the Bush bodies are buried?

7. So many of the Iran/Contra gang have been honored by the right and often not identified

as such by the mainstream media. I remember one time where Abrams was quoted in a Boston Globe printed oped criticizing John Kerry's views on the Middle East. Kerry's chief of staff, David Wade, wrote a LTE that they printed that pointed out that it was Kerry's work investigating the Contras that were part of what led to Abrams' indictments.

What is clear is that that group of neo cons have been behind almost everything wrong in American foreign policy. Hopefully Hagel will be confirmed and Biden, Kerry and Hagel will be the strongest voices Obama hears.